Fourth International, May 1944

The Editors

The Month in Review

From Fourth International, vol.5 No.5, May 1944, p.131-135.
Transcribed, marked up & formatted by Ted Crawford & David Walters in 2008 for ETOL.

Stalin and the “Democratization” of the Badoglio Regime

STALIN INTERVENES TO SAVE BADOGLIO Stalinism has completely unmasked its counter-revolutionary visage in Italy. Two closely linked moves mark the Kremlin’s direct and forecible intervention against the Italian revolution. First came the recognition of Badoglio and the House of Savoy. This paved the way, under Stalinist auspices, for the “reconstitution” of Badoglio’s utterly reactionary government through the inclusion of the representatives of the six parties comprising the so-called Committee of Liberation, otherwise known as the “democratic” bloc, or Junta. For the Kremlin, these are only preparatory steps in a general offensive against the revolutionary masses. An integral part of the plan is to clear the way for the untrammeled operations of the GPU murder squads on Italian soil. Stalin hopes to assassinate the Socialist revolution in Italy as he did in Spain.

These are desperate measures to meet a desperate situation. That there is apprehension in the Kremlin over the Italian developments is clearly evident from a long article which appeared in Izvestia on March 30. This article states flatly that: “It is well known by now that the moral and economic situation in southern Italy is disastrous.” (Daily Worker, April 1.)

The situation is no doubt disastrous so far as the plight of the masses is concerned. But this is not what Izvestia has in mind.

By its entire record the Stalinist bureaucracy has long ago revealed that the only disasters to which it is sensitive are those that threaten its own interests and privileges.

WHAT IZVESTIA REALLY FEARS After pointing out that “matters in Italy have clearly run into a ‘cul de sac’,” Izvestia goes on to conclude that the existing situation is leading “Italy to an exhaustion of forces and threatens to ruin her.” Here we already come to the nature of the “disaster” that is alarming the Kremlin. On the lips of the Stalinists Italy’s “ruin” means one thing and one thing only – the triumph of the proletarian revolution. It ought to be noted that Izvestia’s words are an eloquent confirmation of the fact that the revolutionary crisis in Italy has yet to reach its peak.

No less noteworthy is the Kremlin’s estimate of the effect of Allied policies. Izvestia attacks Churchill’s plan of letting the “situation stew” and insists that this “only deepens the crisis instead of solving it.” The same thing is true of the AMG. According to Izvestia: “The rule of the Allied Military Government ... has done more harm than good.”

What about the resources of the Italian ruling class? Here, too, Izvestia paints a dismal picture. There is no one to cope with the crisis. In its opinion: “Neither the Badoglio government nor the Committee of Liberation by themselves can solve it.”

The situation in Italy must indeed be critical – for capitalism – if the official organ of the Stalinist government becomes so outspoken about it. There can be no question about it: mortal fear of the revolution has spurred Stalin into action. He hopes to achieve the “solution” of the Italian crisis by amalgamating the two bankrupt combinations which represent the forces of capitalist reaction; and by utilizing the “united” cabinet, with Stalinists in government posts, to provide the GPU with a most convenient facade for its operations. Those who spread the slightest illusion about the role of Stalinism or the “reconstituted” Badoglio government are guilty of aiding the bitterest enemies of the Italian people.

CHURCHILL’S INTERVENTION IN FAVOR OF THE MONARCHY The Kremlin’s actions came at a time when the opposition to Badoglio was reaching new heights. On February 22, only a few weeks before Stalin’s intervention in favor of the King, Churchill declared in the House of Commons that the monarchy constituted the “only legitimate government” of Italy. This declaration of the Tory chief provoked such anger and indignation that the parties of the “democratic” Junta were compelled to head the movement of protest. They first called for a general strike in Naples and then, after reducing it to a token demonstration of 10 minutes, called it off, under Allied pressure; but they did hold a public meeting.

On March 11, the day after the Naples protest demonstration and in the midst of the great general strikes against the Nazis in northern Italy, the Kremlin announced its recognition of Badoglio. This timing was deliberate. In order to intensify the surprise and the confusion, Moscow confined itself in the beginning to semi-official explanations, pretending that nothing more than a diplomatic technicality was involved. On March 24 the New York Times reported that what Stalin had in mind was “establishing direct contact with that (Badoglio) government rather than actually according it diplomatic recognition.”

GPU’S HIRELINGS CAUGHT UNAWARES The hirelings of the Kremlin – who are never consulted or informed on really important shifts of policy – were everywhere caught completely unawares. While the negotiations with Badoglio were being consummated, the Stalinists in Italy, as well as in England and this country, continued to attack Badoglio and the King.

Even after the news of Stalin’s recognition of Badoglio was released, the Stalinists denied they would therewith alter their policy. In this country, the Daily Worker swore on March 15 that Moscow’s action “in no way affects the desire ... to dispose of it (the Badoglio regime) fundamentally.” Italian Stalinist leaders went even further. According to dispatches from Naples:

“Eugenio Reale, secretary of Italian CP, said the action would have no effect on the party’s opposition to Marshal Badoglio and its demand for the abdication of King Victor Emmanuel.” (New York Times, March 14.)

C.L. Sulzberger cabled on the next day from Naples that:

“Communist Party leaders here announced that they would intensify their efforts to overthrow King Victor Emmanuel and Marshal Badoglio’s government.”

Sulzberger went on to specify that Paolo Tedeschi, leader of the Italian Communist Party, had publicly issued a pledge to “agitate more strongly” against the universally hated King and his Marshal.

HOW THE “DEMOCRATS” ALL FOLLOWED SUIT Needless to say, these contemptible flunkeys reversed themselves swiftly enough. Moscow made doubly sure by rushing one of its most notorious CPU agents Palmieri Togliatti, alias Ercoli, to the scene. The flip-flop of the liberals, “democrats” and “socialists” in Italy was no less sudden and abject than that of the Stalinists. The colleagues of this shabby crew in this country forget to mention this trifle. By placing the entire blame on the Kremlin, they seek to exonerate the despicable role of all the six parties who have played the game of opposition to Badoglio and the King since the downfall of Mussolini. No, these gentlemen will not succeed in hiding their own crimes behind the crimes of the Kremlin. They will deceive very few, least of all in Italy.

Nothing could be more fraudulent than the claim that the Badoglio government has been “democratized.” Its character has not been altered in any essential way by the inclusion of the Stalinists, the liberals and the Social Democrats. It has been reinforced in this way in order to enable it to continue to deprive the people of their elementary democratic rights and to prevent them from organizing a government of their own choosing. The caricature of a “People’s Front” is nothing but a cloak for a regime which remains a police and military dictatorship, resting on Allied bayonets, and now to be propped up also by the pistols of the GPU.

The Badoglio regime emerged as it did after the downfall of Mussolini not out of choice but of necessity: the years of fascist rule had destroyed all the other traditional mechanisms and levers of capitalist rule.

THE ROLE OF “COALITIONS” In the heyday of capitalism a shift of ministers or cabinets was of little moment to the bourgeoisie. As a matter of fact such shifts became the customary means of enabling the ruling class to extricate itself from untenable positions. By the middle of the nineteenth century, after the 1848 revolutions, the bourgeoisie elaborated a special technique of ministerial shifts as a means of duping, dividing and weakening the workers. This device is the so-called “coalition” government, that is, a cabinet consisting of members of the bourgeoisie and renegade working class leaders. For decades the “socialist” leaders of France, Germany and other European countries have provided in this way a convenient cover for the capitalists, enabling them to surmount one crisis after another. After the overthrow of Czarism, the Russian bourgeoisie tried to save itself through just such a trick – a coalition with the SR’s and the Mensheviks. Kerensky’s provisional government was a “People’s Front” in its classic form. Kerensky and the Mensheviks actually wielded the state power – in the interests of the Russian bourgeoisie. Stalin subsequently repeated this abysmal treachery of the “People’s Fronts” in the period prior to the outbreak of the second World War (France, Spain).

The “People’s Front” concocted in Italy is a miserable caricature of the classic form. Badoglio and the King remain in the saddle; the “coalition” members are impotent captives.

We see expressed here the progressive decay of the capitalist system which has been enormously speeded up by the war. The arena for political maneuvers, already greatly restricted in the pre-war period, has been still further narrowed down. The experience in Italy has already shown that in countries subjected to fascist rule ministerial shifts are in and of themselves pregnant with the gravest political consequences. Far from surmounting a crisis thereby, the capitalist class may find itself facing the abyss. The Italian capitalists hoped to stave off a catastrophe by sacrificing Mussolini and a few other figureheads; instead of subsiding the revolution thereupon sent its billows throughout the entire land. What would Badoglio’s removal entail? Or the abolition of the monarchy?

A NAKEDNESS THAT MUST BE COVERED The urgent need of maintaining the status quo politically, poses all the more urgently the need of a cover. If any regime in history ever needed a cover it is that of Badoglio and Victor Emmanuel who because of their direct association for twenty years with Mussolini stand all too nakedly exposed before the masses. Virtually from the beginning, Badoglio has dangled cabinet posts before the parties of the “opposition” in order to secure at least a semblance of “coalition.” It is no secret that such negotiations were in progress long before Stalin’s intervention. Even Izvestia acknowledges that Badoglio and the King had “on more than one occasion stated their readiness to include new elements capable of uniting the progressive forces of Italy.” (Daily Worker, April 1) Hitherto these overtures have been rejected only because of the fear that individuals and parties accepting such posts would immediately lose all credit with the people. Today the “progressive forces” hope to escape the consequences of their actions by mutual support and mutual amnesty. Just the reverse will happen.

IT IS SUPPLIED BY THE KREMLIN Stalin utilized the prestige of the Soviet Union and the victories of the Red Army to constitute the caricature coalition which now masks the reactionary and impotent regime of Badoglio. If the Italian events have demonstrated anything at all, it is the complete corruption and bankruptcy of bourgeois democracy. Nine months of AMG’s rule in Italy have driven this lesson home to the masses in the country. The reactionary role of Churchill and Roosevelt, especially through their support of Badoglio and the King, is no longer a secret to them. They are now receiving their direct lessons about the true nature not only of Stalinism but also of the domestic brand of capitalist “democracy.” At one stroke all the parties in the camp of capitalism have revealed their true nature. The road has been cleared for a rapid political education of the masses and the consolidation of the working class vanguard in a genuine revolutionary party.

ALL THE PROBLEMS REMAIN UNSOLVED The Badoglio regime is doomed. Italy has long been bankrupt. Inflation, the terms of the Allied armistice and the turning of the country into a major battlefield are completing its economic ruin. The Italian people want and need bread and peace. The “reconstituted” Badoglio regime can offer them only more starvation and further slaughter. Every one of the six parties capitulating to Badoglio is compromised by its open betrayal of the Italian people.

There is only one force in Italy and throughout the world that is really progressive and capable of solving the unpostponable problems confronting mankind. That force is the working class united under the banner of the Trotskyist party and its program of the socialist revolution. In the interval between the two world wars many favorable revolutionary situations were lost for lack of a revolutionary party and program. This cardinal lesson of the past has not been forgotten by millions of Italian workers who, we are confident, will build such a party in the days ahead.

On the Eve of the Allied Invasion of Europe

PREPARING FOR THE INVASION By the time these lines appear in print the Allied invasion of Europe may be under way. The capitalist press is devoting many columns of space each day to descriptions of the mammoth preparations for this climactic agony of the war. Eisenhower has announced with an air of finality that Germany will be defeated before the year is out. Another American general in England tells a group of field officers that some of them will never return – “but we shall win.” There is a steely, inhuman quality about it all. Everything is cut and dried. Millions of human beings are being pushed around like chips in a great poker game. The Allied soldiers who are being shoved toward the bloody abyss know that a fearful ordeal awaits them. They have been schooled to fight and kill, to suffer and endure – to the end that Hitler may be defeated. And then? It is at this point that the official schooling ends. As every report on the subject plainly shows, the soldiers haven’t the least idea what they are fighting for.

The Atlantic Charter, with the “four freedoms”? Its pale, flickering existence was snuffed out by its very authors. Churchill made haste to proclaim its non-applicability to India. He and Roosevelt have worked out plans for dismembering Germany and Balkanizing the whole European continent for the profit and security of Anglo-American Big Business.

The imperialists now sense the futility of trying to surround their predatory schemes with an aura of disinterested idealism. So they don’t state any war aims. They just keep quiet. After all, there is North Africa. And there is Italy. The Moroccans and the Tunisians have been “liberated.” Is it just accident that they find themselves under the heel of the same old gang of French capitalists who now have American and British bayonets to back them up? Was it just some queer twist of fate that brought the Italians under the police-military dictatorship of Badoglio and the King after they had got rid of Mussolini and his blackshirt thugs?

LIBERAL PRETENSES AND NAKED REALITY Only an obtuse liberal or a venal Stalinist could pretend to believe that. The Allied imperialists had planned it that way and want to keep it that way. They have planned the same sort of thing for “liberated” France on the morrow of the invasion. The dirty deals of Roosevelt and Churchill, always screened from public view in the preparatory stages, seem amazing and mystifying only if one accepts the premise that this is a war for liberty and democracy. Mystification gives way to true understanding if one accepts the Trotskyist thesis that this war, like the war of 1914-18, is simply a predatory war for imperialist aims.

The material interests involved in the war – the lust for colonies, for markets, for spheres of influence, for profits – are becoming more and more evident. Where in the fanciful picture of a “war for democracy” can one fit Standard Oil’s grab of the oil of Saudi Arabia, the growing Anglo-American rivalry over air transportation, shipping, trade, colonies, or Britain’s flat refusal to return Hong Kong to China when Japan has been defeated? All these things fit into a picture of imperialist war and no other.

In preparing the invasion of Europe, Roosevelt and Churchill are confronted by two sets of problems, one military, the other political. In the purely military sphere they seek the defeat of German imperialism. Politically they are concerned with insuring that vanquishment of their German rival is not followed by social revolution and the downfall of European capitalism.

Supreme confidence in military victory marks all the pronouncements of the Allied camp. Like gangsters about to move into territory held by rival racketeers, they have made every possible preparation to guarantee success for their undertaking. Huge armies have been assembled and trained. Mighty air and sea forces are in readiness. Tremendous stocks of munitions and supplies have been gathered. Just as they display a reckless unconcern over monetary costs so, too, the imperialists are cynically indifferent to the great cost in human life of this tremendous military gamble. Their war juggernaut will have to cross rivers of blood and mountains of corpses to reach its objective. They know this. They have counted and discounted the cost. If in times of peace millions must toil, starve and die to sustain the system of capitalist robbery, of what account are more millions of lives in time of war?

WHAT THEY ALL DREAD THE MOST But what is to be the result of all this “blood, sweat and tears?” The arrogant confidence which the imperialists display in their military might is not matched by a corresponding spirit in the political domain. Here one discerns a feeling of unease and apprehension. War breeds revolution. They remember the Russian October and the revolutions that swept through Finland, Hungary and Germany after the last war when the workers rose up to put an end to capitalism. And now there is Italy, where a restless, rebellious people are striving to rid themselves of the rotten Badoglio regime.

Will the various underground movements in Europe fold up and disappear when the Allied armies march in? Will the dark cloud of civil war which now hangs loweringly over the Continent simply dissolve, or will it change to the red hue of the socialist revolution? Fear of such a development, amounting almost to certainty, haunts the dreams of the Allied imperialists and gives them no rest, for socialist revolution in Europe will spell doom for world capitalism.

In their arrogance the imperialist gamblers may imagine that armies powerful enough to reduce Hitler’s Festung Europa will be powerful enough to put down revolution and restore capitalist “order.” But how will the workers back home regard the activities of a “liberating” army which becomes a counterrevolutionary police force employed to stamp upon the revolutionary masses? In Russia after the October overturn, American and British troops refused to fight against the Bolsheviks. French sailors mutinied in the Black Sea. British workers formed Councils of Action to prevent shipment of munitions and supplies to the counter-revolutionary forces in Russia. What ground is there for any assurance that these things cannot happen again?

D-Day is near. The invasion armies are poised to strike and the war in Europe moves toward its dramatic climax. Insofar as this is possible, the imperialists have perfected their plans for the military campaign and for suppressing revolution. They have found useful allies in the Stalinists, who are the most venomous betrayers of the revolutionary struggle for Socialism. But the tortured peoples of Europe have not yet spoken. Theirs will be the last word.

The Montgomery Ward Case

AN OBLECT LESSON FOR THE WORKERS The seizure by the government of the Montgomery Ward plant at Chicago on April 26 and its subsequent return to the company two weeks later, have provided the labor movement with another object lesson on the role of the capitalist government in disputes between the employers and the unions. The labor leaders who hailed Roosevelt’s order directing the Department of Commerce to seize the plant as a “victory” for the union, are more than a little bewildered by the frenzied developments that occurred in this short period. It turns out that the union won a Pyrrhic victory! The strike which tied up the Chicago plant and was spreading to other Montgomery Ward units, was called off in compliance with Roosevelt’s order. The basic issues in dispute are left dangling in mid-air. Sewell Avery, head of Montgomery Ward, adamant in his determination to maintain the open shop, persists in his refusal to extend the existing contract and reiterates his unyielding opposition to conceding the maintenance-of-membership clause – the real issue in dispute.

The only disputed question settled was that the union represents a majority of the employees as established by a National Labor Relations Board poll, taken while the government was in possession of the plant. But the union had established this point by its ability to tie up the Chicago plant by calling its members out on strike-a strike which received the sympathy and support of the entire labor movement, with the exception of the Stalinist finks, and gave every promise of being an effective means of forcing Avery to meet the demands of the union. Roosevelt and his henchmen pretended that the only issue involved in the dispute was whether or not the union represented a majority of the workers.

AVERY DENIES WHAT ROOSEVELT AFFIRMS “If the election shows that the union does not have a majority of the employees,” Roosevelt told a press conference, “that will end the case. On the other hand, if the election shows that the union has a majority, then the management has declared that it is willing to continue its contract and that will end the case.” The plant was seized, an NLRB election was held, and the establishment was turned back to Avery even before the polls were closed, on the aforementioned assumption that the results of the election would resolve the dispute. Avery quickly dispelled this mirage. Referring to Roosevelt’s press statement Avery said: “We have never made such a statement and we never intend to. The only thing the election will settle is whether the union represents a majority of Ward’s workers.”

The NLRB election, in which the union won a substantial majority, decided exactly nothing. Avery’s comment was that the election was of “no consequence.” The company, “would sign no contract demanding a maintenance of membership or a closed shop clause,” Avery declared, “nor would Montgomery Ward renew the former contract, containing a maintenance of membership provision.” After being taken for a whirl on Roosevelt’s merry-go-round, the union found itself back where it started from; a trifle dazed by the dizzy ride and trying to recover its bearings. “The seizure of the plant has been a farce,” declared the union’s attorney. The president of the Chicago local, H.B. Anderson, added: “We hope the old contract will be extended until our new contract demands are met. If the company refuses maintenance of membership, the whole thing will be back in the War Labor Board’s lap.” In other words, “hold on to your hats, here we go again!”

ROUTINE LEFT UNDISTURBED BY GOVERNMENT “SEIZURE” After his return Avery issued a statement in which he boasted: “During the thirteen days of the seizure no employee was disciplined for failure to maintain union membership, no dues were checked off and no grievances were arbitrated or even adjusted.” In his statement accompanying the order for the return of the plant, Secretary Jones, Department of Commerce, observed that, “at no time during the period of Government possession have the normal, routine business procedures of Montgomery Ward and Co. been disturbed.” In fact, nothing was disturbed throughout the whole theatrical seizure, except the breaking of the strike. After this purpose was successfully accomplished the plant was returned to the company posthaste.

The primary object of the government seizure was to head off the independent action of the workers in fighting for their rights, in referring the case to Roosevelt, the War Labor Board warned that “there is a real and present danger that the disturbance will spread to the plants and facilities of other companies, both in the Chicago area and elsewhere …. Local unions in Chicago in many of the important war plants have voted to support the Montgomery Ward employees who are on strike.” A successful strike of the Ward employees, backed by the strength of the organized labor movement, would be an infectious example for the workers who have been smarting under the provocative acts of management and the run-around they have been getting from the WLB and other administration agencies. Roosevelt’s strategy is designed to prevent the independent action of the workers by channelizing their grievances into the labyrinth of government bureaus and agencies which make up his labor relations machinery.

INESCAPABLE CONCLUSIONS The lesson to be learned from the Ward case is that the workers cannot depend on a capitalist government to protect their interests. Such a government can function only as a strikebreaking agency for the bosses. Only the independent action of the workers, through their own union strength and solidarity, can bring the “recalcitrant” employers to terms. But today the entire organized labor movement is rendered impotent by the complete reliance of the leadership on the Roosevelt administration. Through the no-strike pledge labor has been deprived of its most effective weapon of defending its interests on the economic field. Once the Independent Labor Party is built and the American workers enter the path of struggle for the establishment of the Workers and Farmers Government – then, and only then, will the workers be able to depend on the government to defend the interests of the overwhelming majority of the people against the greed and arrogance of Avery and all his kind.

The May 1940 Assault Against Leon Trotsky

STALIN ORDERS THE MURDER OF TROTSKY Four years ago, on May 24, 1940, the GPU murder machine, on orders from Stalin, struck to destroy Leon Trotsky and his wife Natalia. A squad of more than a score of heavily armed men, masquerading in the uniforms of Mexican police and army, succeeded in penetrating into Trotsky’s residence in Coyoacan, a suburb of Mexico City. The premises were riddled with machinegun fire, the attack being concentrated on the bedroom where the aged couple was sleeping. Convinced that their mission had been carried out, the assassins departed after setting off incendiary bombs in order to destroy Trotsky’ archives, particularly the manuscript of his book on Stalin which was then in preparation. (The publication of this book in the United States has since then been suppressed by orders of the State Department.) But Trotsky and his wife miraculously escaped the attack. Stalin was to succeed a few weeks later, when in August the GPU agent Jacson struck Trotsky down from behind with a pickaxe.

The details of this May 1940 crime have long been a matter of public record. The role of the GPU and of the Stalinists in it was established beyond a shadow of a doubt. Many of the participants confessed. It was proved that the murder squad was comprised of former members of the Stalinist-dominated Loyalist brigades in Spain. The leader of the attack, David Alfaro Siqueiros, Mexican painter and notorious GPU agent, was caught red-handed. To this day he does not deny his part but tries brazenly to dismiss it as “an unfortunate bit of political sniping on my part.” (Siqueiros is now back in Mexico City where he roams the streets with impunity and talks of making a tour in the United States, under the auspices of Nelson Rockefeller’s “coordinators of inter-American affairs.”) The trail led directly to the Central Committee of the Mexican Communist Party, one of whose members Serrano was implicated. Likewise indicated was the complicity of the Soviet Embassy in Washington, then under Oumansky, now Stalin’s ambassador to Mexico.

ROBERT SHELDON HARTE FALLS VICTIM OF GPU In their May 1940 attack, the murderers failed to carry out their main assignment, but, they did not leave the scene without exacting a toll. They kidnapped and killed Robert Sheldon Harte, one of Trotsky’s American secretary-guards. They put two bullets through his head, one in the base of the skull, the other through the temple – and threw his body into a shallow lime-filled grave, near a cabin a few miles away from Trotsky’s residence. After they killed Harte, the Stalinists tried to besmirch his name by intimating in the press that he had been connected with the gang of assassins. They hoped that the lime would disfigure his body beyond recognition, if it ever was found. But in this, too, they failed.

The memory of Robert Sheldon Harte remains unblemished. Bob was only 25 when he died for the ideas in which he believed. He came from a wealthy family, but he found it impossible to accept a society based on exploitation and greed, on lies and cruelty, on perpetual misery and perpetual wars. His hatred of the decaying capitalist system led him to search for a solution. He found it in the program of Trotskyism. From the day he joined the New York local of the Socialist Workers Party, he served with unbounded devotion. He sought for no personal satisfaction beyond the framework of the revolutionary movement and its tasks. His sole ambition was to be worthy of the banner under which he had enlisted. He was not the first co-worker of Leon Trotsky murdered by the GPU. His name must be enrolled among the members of Trotsky’s secretariat against whom the GPU has from the first vented all its fury. Inside the Soviet Union, Stalin killed the following Russian secretaries of Trotsky: M. Glazman, G. Butov, Y. Blumkin, N. Sermuks and I. Poznansky. In addition to Robert Sheldon Harte, the list of Trotsky’s secretaries murdered abroad includes: R. Clement, E. Wolfe, and Trotsky’s own son, Leon Sedov.

TROTSKY’S PROGRAM IS UNCONQUERABLE Today it ought to be clear even to the blind why Stalin had to silence at all costs the voice of Lenin’s collaborator, the leader of the October insurrection in Petrograd and the organizer of the Red Army. It was to pave the way for the Kremlin’s open betrayal of the world working class and the struggle for Socialism. By killing Trotsky, Stalin hoped to destroy the influence of Trotsky’s ideas and his popularity with the masses in the Soviet Union and throughout the world. Stalin thought he was thereby dealing a death blow to Trotsky’s supreme contribution to the world revolution – The Fourth International.

The power of ideas is beyond the grasp of Stalin and his hirelings. In the not too distant future the unconquerable force of the program of the Fourth International will demonstrate itself on the arena of history. For everyone of our fallen martyrs, thousands upon hundreds of thousands will rally to Trotsky’s banner. In their wake, millions will follow to realize on earth the communist future of man.

This work is in the Public Domain under the Creative Commons Common Deed. You can freely copy, distribute and display this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit the Encyclopedia of Trotskism On-Line as your source, include the url to this work, and note any of the transcribers, editors & proofreaders above.